The Importance of Self-Detachment in Social Work Practice

“I’ve had it. I can’t do this anymore” Words I uttered to a fellow Master in Social Work student while riding down in the elevator after our last class of the day. Her eyes glazed over and when the elevator doors opened we went our separate ways. When is caring about and for our fellow human beings simply more than we want do deal with? Why on one day do I feel totally inspired to work in programs that respond to human suffering and the next all I want to do is spend the day alone riding my bicycle?

While researching for one of my papers I bumped into an article entitled “The Buffering Effect of Self-Detachment Against Emotional Exhaustion Amongst Social Work Students” by Yu-Wen Ying (2008). Huh? What? Self-Detachment? Not caring about the people we were serving is ok – even for a while? On page 138 of the study she clearly states “. . . that self-detachment and social support significantly protected against emotional exhaustion in social work students.” The study clearly shows there is a correlation between high self-detachment and low emotional exhaustion and vice versa.

The first thing I needed to examine was my definitions of self-detachment and caring about people. In the article, Ying makes the following comment “While the Western dualistic perspective tends to pit self-love against other-love, in the Eastern-Buddhist tradition, self- and other-compassion are inextricably intertwined. . . “ (Ying, 2008). So again I bump up against my western mind. I clearly believe in the importance of mindfulness in my social work practice (see my earlier blogs) but I clearly separate out self-love (going from a bike ride) from other-love (providing direct human services). And I appear to be very self judgmental about feeling two different ways; that is, feeling something must be wrong if I keep feeling different ways about my chosen profession. It must be evidence of a conflict in values and ethics, indecisiveness, wishy-washiness, etc.

Ying (2008) is saying that “. . . self- and other-compassion are inextricably intertwined. . .” and created a hypothesis and study whose results support this statement. If I understand this correctly, caring about myself CAN BE caring about other people (although Ying (2008) is careful to point out that “. . . the former should not be misconstrued as self-indulgent”). I have heard and talked about the concept of self care as being an important aspect of human service work for many years. I have always interpreted this as the importance of distancing oneself from other people for a period of time as a way of “recharging ones batteries”; again the dualistic world view. But I have never really considered self-detachment as not distancing oneself from another person but simply changing ones mindfulness focus while continuing to provide other-love to other people. In other words, not necessarily separating self-love from other-love as a form of burn out protection or burn out recovery.

So what does this mean to me in the real world? Several things come to mind. The first is the importance of mindfulness meditation. If I strengthen my ability to control the focus of my attention I will not be as likely to be swept away by another person’s feelings and/or situation increasing my ability to keep a clear and present mind and create meaningful solutions. Secondly it means that I can spend time alone doing things I enjoy but I don’t have to spend time alone in order prevent burn out. Thirdly I have to work on finding ways of providing self-love and other-love at the same time. How can I spend time with this person, care for myself and still provide meaningful solutions to their problems without being self-indulgence. (An example might be walking with the person while we talk providing me with much needed physical exercise while still focusing on the other person’s issues).

I’m sure there are other ways and benefits to providing compassion for myself and others at the same time but the key for me is to not think about pitting my care for self against my care for others. It truly is a change in my world view. I believe this is a very important focus for my ongoing meditation practice and needs to become a foundation to my mindfulness social work practice.

Reference:

Ying, Y. (2008). The Buffering Effect of Self-Detachment Against Emotional Exhaustion Amongst Social Work Students. Journal of Religion and Spirituality in Social Work: Social Thought, Vol. 27 (1-2). 127-146.